Non-verbal and verbal behaviour of beginner learners of Japanese: pragmatic failure and native speaker evaluation

This study, undertaken within the field of interlanguage pragmatics, investigates thekinds of pragmatic failures observed among tertiary level foreign learners of Japaneseand also seeks to find reasons to help explain the occurrence of these failures. Thefocus of the study is on the data generated from a role play where a student has toborrow a book from their Japanese teacher. The primary role play is performed by ninebeginner level learners of Japanese studying at an Australian university, but the roleplay is also performed by ten Japanese native speakers in order to determine what isnormative for native speakers in this situation. Unlike previous studies in this area, thisresearch collects kinesic non-verbal data in addition to linguistic data. The data isanalysed using Thomas's (1983) concept of pragmatic failure, and Brown andLevinson's (1978, 1987) politeness theory. The study also considers whether Japanesenative speakers evenly evaluate the role play performances of the Japanese learners.Despite difficulties in the application of these linguistic theories to beginner levellearners, a number of sociopragmatic failures and one pragmalinguistic failure areobserved in the role play performances of the Japanese learners. These are partiallyexplained by a lack of instruction, nervousness in performing the role play and thelearners' limited proficiency in the Japanese language. Inconsistencies are alsoobserved in the way that JNS participants evaluate the role play performances of theJFL learners